Season 63 Rankings: Making the final cut

[superaielman]

He's one of the game's more memorable characters and does have the plot. He isn't the first character who doesn't translate right (Hell, see Oscar being a meh middle and his movement/durability not being really DL relevant, or yeah the OB clerics). In game he's useful for being a durable full heal battery, DL... he's a meh slugger who gives mages problems and doesn't like fighters. That doesn't feel too out of line.  I don't think anyone really considers row changing for OB or SN either, so a problem with him doing that shouldn't crop up.

Layna I can see the issues with since she's late, I will let her fans handle that one.

[Luther Lansfeld]

It's a little different, though. Vitali literally never serves this function in-game.

[Talaysen]

Changes

Added Kieran to ranking list for FE10.

Added a ranking list for SN if it gets in: Danette, Grunzford, Odie, Tricia, Vitali.  Everything else (including the game itself) is still abstaining.

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I'll admit I support Tricia and Vitali mostly because I like them as characters, but they do show up often enough in the plot.  I never really felt the plot had to be /about the characters/ to count at all, so yeah.

Layna's kind of a big plot point but latejoiner is all kinds of meh for me.  Don't think I'll mind if she gets in but not really going to support it at this point.  Could be argued I guess but I kinda doubt it.

[superaielman]

Ciato: That's true enough, but I don't think it is enough of a problem to make him notably worse than the rest of the SN PC's.  If Nils had a 1 damage physical, we would have ranked him in spite of him never using that in game either.

[Dhyerwolf]

Vitali- Pros: Lots of plot, lots of in-game use, fun character, really fun DL strategy, IMO (Using his limited free to try to live until his limit kicks in, then getting 4 turns of full healing while unloading not completely atrocious damage). Cons: Bad DL translation. You kind of have an idea how he would attack in game, but you're never going to see him do it. Of what I considered the 7 most core ranks, he's the one that I would always put 7th.

Tricia- Pros: Lots of plot, really fun DL strategy (Using evasion and long range counters to try to overcome weakness to short range fighters). Cons: Not the strongest. This isn't even a bad translation, this is just the in-game niche of her class. She's designed to tear through mages (who are not durable) and bad against things at are. Means she doesn't need much damage. Borderline Light/Middle though, and as noted, more interesting Lights are always good.

Layna- Pros: Decent amount of plot face time at least (I believe it's 4-5 plot battles), very, very plot relevant, stats in game are kind of extreme (And you can't get enough room locks in game, so you're are bound ot have some dinky room. Layna and her ridiculous stats are perfect for filling that), decent Godlike PC slugger. Con: Not around for that long.

[OblivionKnight]

Layna: Very plot-important, honestly.  She's an over-arching character (to avoid spoilers).  It's more apparent in the Demon Path, but she does have this all explained in the normal path, so it's not limited to the one path.  She is an excellent combat character and makes a great leader (high stats everywhere - gamebest overall I believe, more than Revya without absorptions - that increase with the leader adjustment bonuses by a lot in addition to great field tactics and a powerful special attack).  She is late, but it really strikes me as more of an Athos case than anything.  

Vitali: Lots of plot interaction.  Arguably, he's the least likely to be used as a leader due to poor field movement.  His field tactics and special are pretty good, but most people won't see his attack (although they'll know it exists), usually putting him in the back to heal.  Not that people won't know what he does when he fights - that's see with generic clerics as well.  It's more the he does not translate at all (which, again, isn't abnormal), not that he's present as a plot character.

Tricia: In-between.  Her plot relevance is there definitely; not as much as Layna or Vitali, but still there.  Unlike Vitali, she actually is a good squad leader, and will likely be used for her attacks (as archers have a great middle attack).  He special is also something likely to be seen a lot, due to her range and low STM.  So she's definitely a good option based on gameplay and plot relevance, and is present at least half of the game (and has a lot of Shauna connections, who is the most present boss in the game, so that helps too).

Incidentally, can you explain (Mr. Elf), how this works?  I've argued before for a 4-stage ranking schema (and will likely continue to argue it after this), where it's

1) Choose the games
2) Choose if the games make it or not
3) Choose which characters make it or not
4) Rank the winning characters

If someone abstains on a game but gives a list of characters to rank, I was told that their list of characters doesn't count.  I've been told the only specific character ranks that count are those that also have a "yes" to the game as a whole (while a "no" to the game doesn't count for a no to each character individually).  Can you provide a detailed explanation of how this whole process works, as I think it might help everyone if it were clarified?  

[Dhyerwolf]

Question: Does Volug come back way underlevelled like some of the other DB units?

[OblivionKnight]

He comes back at the same level...level 15 is what he joins at, which is...higher than a level 15 Dawn Brigade character.  Laguz max out at 40 with no promotions, while humans max out at 60 (3 promotions at 20 levels each), so he's close to level 20/10 or so in human terms.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dhyer: No, Volug starts quite overlevelled (effectively) so he actually tends to do fine level-wise going into part 4. He has other interp issues due to being a laguz, though.


Here is a summary of how votes are counted:

First of all, if it's necessary, I do a "general" count of the game, counting only votes that support or do not support the game as a whole. If the game isn't over 2/3 support, skip all remaining steps because nothing is getting in.

Next, characters are totalled up individually. Anyone who casts a "no" vote for the game is assumed to be also casting a "no" vote for each specific character, too. People -are- allowed to throw in support/anti-support for characters "if and only if a game is ranked", although this isn't common simply because most abstentions are from people who haven't played the game in question.

The somewhat weird case are people who say "Yes" to a game but offer nothing on specific ranks. A "Yes to all" vote (see Neph) is interpreted as just that, a yes vote to every character from the game. A "Yes, abstain on individual rankings" is interpreted as only directly supporting the most supported character ideas from a game, however, so these votes can not be taken as supporting anyone who has been opposed by any other supporter of the game; after all, the vote has specifically abstained on anything contentious.

As you can probably guess, this may create problems if a generally quite supported character is opposed by 1-2 players of the game; if the game is getting enough No votes in general, these 1-2 players may make the difference. In this case, I asked for the clarification because I wanted to see how widely-felt it was that the three PCs in question were inferior ranking ideas, and also to coax the people currently abstaining to see how they wanted their vote counted in regards to said PCs (thank you to Dhyer et al. for giving summaries for others to read, incidentally!). Basically I'm quite aware that there's a questionable zone here for what characters have the support needed to go on, and I want very much for characters to fall clearly on one side or the other of it. Note that I myself have no real vested interest in if these characters make it or not (all three sound inoffensive to me) but I do want the will of the DL to be reflected properly here.

[Dhyerwolf]

Doesn't he avoid that at least to some degree. I'm just trying to sift out who I think might be a good FE 10 rank, and I've at least seen Volug! Plot may not be great, but standing out for Formshift might be kind of a big thing. Granted, unsure how that looks against enemy speed at endgame.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Layna: Why you wouldn't use her is beyond me. She comes with great stats out of the box, and her Last Gasp attack is a unique ability that hits GT, and SN rewards having GT attacks. Her connection to the first Lady Layna you meet has a lot of screentime devoted to it, and you get to see how young Layna has been dealing with life in Drazil (where she's the only one who looks different from everyone else). I personally found her to be a great lategame addition to the cast and she's one of my favorite characters, particularly over the less plot-important PCs like Grunzford.

Vitali: He has an interesting DL game. He's also a Ninja Cleric in the plot. I don't think we've ever ranked a healer as cool as Vitali, and we could always use more cool Lights.

Tricia: Damn memorable if nothing else. Ranged fighters don't always perform like their counterparts in the DL, but in Tricia's case, her ranged ability is actually seeing more use than most DL Archers. Because she can counter from close or long range, she'll see her Limit sooner than most of the PC cast, so arguably Tricia translates better as a ranged fighter than most DL archers.

Raksha: I think the only issues with him are his SPOILERS form. He's either a Borderline Godlike or a Middle depending on whether you'd see him as his true form or his SPOILERS form. I think if we just rank him as "Raksha", we'll have little problems. Alternately, if he ends up in Heavy, it's possible his SPOILERS form might win a match or two due to typing/outspeeding, so I guess he could have both as legal forms? He'll just probably never want his SPOILERS form.

[superaielman]

The issue with Raksha are more related to people being apathetic about SN bosses than anything else, I'm sure.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Ciato asked about it specifically.

Also, another note on Layna - she has a unique class. She's actually somewhat akin to the special class characters from OB that people seem so supportive of. Except better since she isn't a missable PC.

[superaielman]

Layna's an Athos case down to that, yeah.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Except available for like 5x more battles than Athos, yeah.

[Talaysen]

Layna: Why you wouldn't use her is beyond me.

Because she joined so late and I already had my people set up fine and didn't want to take the time to throw in another person.  It's the same with all latejoiners.  Sometimes you just want to finish the game rather than try and figure out what the new person you don't care about does.  Not that I'm saying don't rank her, but there are reasons people are just kind of apathetic here.

Also Athos is forced, IIRC.  So that's one advantage in his favor.  Though I probably wouldn't support ranking Athos either but what's done is done.

[DjinnAndTonic]

She doesn't join that much later than the rest of your party. The way you gained new party members was spread out fairly evenly. At the point you get Layna, it's not as if 'this is the final battle!'. You don't know how many more maps are coming up, and if you're used to N1 pacing, you know there's aftergame to play around with, so being 'set' on using a particular set of 70 units and having no room for the amazing unique PC that just got handed to you seems silly that you wouldn't at least see what she can do.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Changed Tricia and Vitali to a yes, but firm on the no for Layna.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

She doesn't join that much later than the rest of your party. The way you gained new party members was spread out fairly evenly. At the point you get Layna, it's not as if 'this is the final battle!'. You don't know how many more maps are coming up, and if you're used to N1 pacing, you know there's aftergame to play around with, so being 'set' on using a particular set of 70 units and having no room for the amazing unique PC that just got handed to you seems silly that you wouldn't at least see what she can do.

That's pretty self-defeating considering SN's aftergame is actually a path where you keep practically -none- of your mainpath PCs.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Not talking about Demon Path, I still think of that as more like part of the main game, personally. You don't keep any of your mainpath PCs in Demon Path, in fact. Even Galahad has two different saved levels for each cycle, one for Good Path and one for Demon Path.

SN's N1-style aftergame is all Asagi, Median, and Lujei. And the shopkeeper superbosses.

[Cmdr_King]

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
1. Played it.
2. Rank it.
3. Rank... uh fuck it.  Rank everyone, I'm comfortable with everyone in the grey zone.

Soul Nomad & The World Eaters
1. Played it.
2. Rank it.  Seeing a few turnarounds is plenty for me.
3. No Revya, Pinot, Aggripa.  Yes everyone else.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Voting No on Kieran. No plot and Gamble is just too much of an interp headache to support ANOTHER FE Paladin.

[Talaysen]

Voting No on Kieran. No plot and Gamble is just too much of an interp headache.

Soul Nomad:

Yes
Yes

Trolling aside, what's so much a headache about Gamble?  It doubles critical rate and halves accuracy.  That's... pretty damn straightforward.

(Also it's pretty damn irrelevant since Kieran's base crit rate against endgame enemies is -12% so it literally does nothing unless he wants to miss.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

He can use Killer weaponry to make Gamble actually do something, but this won't really accomplish much seeing as halving hit more than outpaces any advantage that can be gleaned from double crit, plus Killer weaponry in FE10 is really bad (and not even storebought in FE9). The only use I could conceivably see for it is maybe, maybe dodging limits a little better than conventional means, since you actually kinda want to miss if you don't crit, there. Maybe.

People aren't supporting Kieran because he's interesting gameplaywise. He's not. They're supporting him because he's a popular/well-liked character. Now if you think Kieran is dull and want to oppose him because of that that's totally your right (though this makes you a bad person). Interp issues aren't a problem here, though.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Overlooking the key part where I'd be supporting ranking ANOTHER FE PALADIN (and one with some potentially headache-y matches in Middle thanks to Gamble) while in the booting topic, I'm probably the loudest person saying we need to cut out all the excess FE characters.